The History of John Street North

The Ottawa Valley became habitable around 10,000 years ago following the natural draining of the Champlain Sea. The first evidence of human presence in the Ottawa Valley are spearpoints dated 8000-8500 years before present. By 6000 years before present, there were robust trading and communications networks. Approximately 3000-3500 years before present, there is definitive evidence of continuously existing settlements, including likely hearths and heavy tools. In closer proximity to the modern bounds of the City of Ottawa, there has been documentation of specific settlements at the mouth of the Gatineau River dating back to 3000-3500 years prior to post-Columbian contact. These findings suggest that these Algonquin people were engaged in foraging, hunting and fishing, but also trade and travel. Three major rivers meet within Ottawa, making it an important trade and travel area for thousands of years. In 1610, Étienne Brûlé became the first documented European to navigate the Ottawa River, passing what would become Ottawa on his way to the Great Lakes. Three years later, Samuel de Champlain wrote about the waterfalls in the area and about his encounters with the Algonquin people. The first non-Indigenous settlement in the area was created by Philemon Wright, a New Englander. Wright founded a lumber town in the area on 7 March 1800 on the north side of the river, across from the present-day city of Ottawa in Hull. He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers, also created an agricultural community called Wright's Town, which would later become Gatineau. Wright pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade (soon to be the area's most significant economic activity) by transporting timber by river from the Ottawa Valley to Quebec City. In the 1820s, news of the British military's impending construction of the Rideau Canal led to land speculation by John Le Breton, a local businessman who bought a land lot on the prediction of the upcoming construction, which led to an alternative canal course being selected. A town was established in 1826 and in 1827 was named after the British military engineer Colonel John By, who was responsible for the Rideau Waterway construction project. The Rideau Canal provided a secure route between Montreal and Kingston on Lake Ontario. It bypassed a vulnerable stretch of the St. Lawrence River bordering the state of New York that had left re-supply ships bound for southwestern Ontario easily exposed to enemy fire during the War of 1812. , on the south side of the Ottawa River in 1826. Colonel By set up military barracks on the site of today's Parliament Hill. He also laid out the streets of the town and created two distinct neighbourhoods named "Upper Town" west of the canal and "Lower Town" east of the canal. Similar to its Upper Canada and Lower Canada namesakes, historically, "Upper Town" was predominantly English-speaking and Protestant, whereas "Lower Town" was mostly French, Irish and Catholic. Bytown's early pioneer period saw Irish labourers cause unrest during the Shiners' War from 1835 to 1845, coming into conflict with French settlers. Bytown's population grew to 1,000 as the Rideau Canal was completed in 1832. In 1855, Bytown was renamed Ottawa and obtained city status. Starting in the 1850s, entrepreneurs known as lumber barons began to build large sawmills, which produced tens of millions of board feet of timber, such as producing 39 million in 1855 after the USA began accepting imports, against approximately 480 million board feet imported from across Canada in Britain a decade earlier, and eventually rising to 613 million in the early 20th century. Rail lines built in 1854 connected Ottawa to areas south and, from 1886, to the transcontinental rail network via Hull and Lachute, Quebec. By 1885 Ottawa was the only city in Canada whose downtown street-lights were powered entirely by electricity. The selection of Ottawa as a capital city predates the Confederation of Canada. The choice was contentious, with the Parliament of the United Province of Canada holding more than 200 votes over several decades to attempt to settle on a legislative solution to the location of its capital. The governor-general of the Province of Canada designated Kingston as the capital in 1841. This was controversial: the cities of Toronto and Montreal, as well as the former capital of Lower Canada, Quebec City, all had legislators dissatisfied with Kingston as the capital, although anglophone merchants in Quebec were the leading group supportive of the Kingston arrangement. In 1842, a vote rejected Kingston as the capital, and study of potential candidates included Bytown, but that option proved less popular than Toronto or Montreal. In 1843, a report by the Executive Council recommended Montreal as the capital, as it was a more fortifiable location and commercial centre. However, the governor-general refused to execute a move without a parliamentary vote. In 1844, the Queen's acceptance of a parliamentary vote moved the capital to Montreal. In 1849, after an Orange mob burned the Parliament building in Montreal, several votes were held on a new permanent capital. Kingston and Bytown were again considered. However, the winning proposal was for the legislature to alternate sitting in either Quebec City and Toronto, in a policy known as perambulation. Logistical difficulties made this an unpopular arrangement, and an 1856 vote passed for the lower house of parliament to relocate permanently to Quebec City. The move did not proceed, as the upper house refused to approve funding for the relocation. The funding impasse led to the ending of the legislature's role in determining the seat of government. The legislature requested the Queen determine the seat of government. The Queen then acted on the advice of her governor general Edmund Head, who, after reviewing proposals from various cities, selected the recently renamed Ottawa. The Queen sent a letter to colonial authorities selecting Ottawa as the capital, effective 31 December 1857. George Brown, briefly a co-premier of the Province of Canada, attempted to reverse this decision but was unsuccessful. The Parliament ratified the Queen's choice in 1859, with Quebec serving as interim capital from 1859 to 1865. The relocation process began in 1865, with the first session of Parliament held in the new buildings in 1866. The buildings were generally well received by legislators. . Ottawa was recommended by Head as the capital due to palatability with both Upper and Lower Canada. Despite the city's regional isolation, there was water transportation access from spring to fall, both to Montreal via the Ottawa River and to Kingston via the Rideau Waterway. Additionally, by 1854 it also had a modern all-season railway (the Bytown and Prescott Railway) that carried passengers, lumber and supplies to Prescott on the Saint Lawrence River and beyond. Finally, the government already owned the land that eventually became Parliament Hill, which it thought would be an ideal location for the Parliament buildings. Public Works Canada and its architects were not initially well prepared for the relatively shallow-lying bedrock involved in construction and as a result had to redesign architectural drawings, leading to delays. By 1885 Ottawa was the only city in Canada whose downtown street-lights were powered entirely by electricity. after the 1900 Hull–Ottawa fire. In 1889, the government distributed 60 "water leases" to local industrialists, which gave them permission to generate electricity and use hydroelectric generators at Chaudière Falls. Public transportation began in 1870 with a horsecar system, overtaken in the 1890s by an electric streetcar system that operated until 1959 and peaked at trackage of 90.5km, including an extension to Hull. In 1900, a chimney fire spread throughout Hull, destroying two-thirds of the city, including the facilities of major lumber employers and main street buildings.

Source: Wikipedia